


Blue Veins

by ushauz



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 14:22:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11716188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ushauz/pseuds/ushauz
Summary: The thing was, Anders was pretty sure soulmarks weren’t supposed to glow.





	Blue Veins

It wasn’t rare for someone to get marks, but it wasn’t that common either. It happened, even to mages. Abstract pictures in distinct styles, a sign that one’s own soul was tied to someone else’s, for better or worse. It was supposed to be a symbol of the Maker’s blessing, but the Templars seemed to think otherwise when it came to mages, because mages weren’t really people and thus had to be tricking the entire metaphysical system somehow.

It didn’t matter that much in the Circle. If a matching set was found, they tended to be split up to remove ‘unneeded emotional stress’ so they would be less of a possession risk. And if the mage had managed to hide their markings through some sheer stroke of luck, it was usually discovered when one mage failed their Harrowing, and then the other would just drop dead.

A handful of enchanters had them as well as a smattering of the older apprentices. Amell had one, even after she had tried to burn it off. Apparently marks were resilient buggers.

The thing was, Anders was pretty sure soulmarks weren’t supposed to glow.

“It’s not just me seeing this, right?” Anders asked, watching the the black, jagged lines under his collar bones crackle intermittently a brilliant blue.

Karl frowned. “I’ve seen some abstract marks before, but this?”

“Yeah I’m not really seeing the picture,” Anders said with a grin.

Karl almost smiled for a moment. Almost. “You may want to hide this.”

“Templars,” they both said in various tones of exasperated at the same time.

“Does… does it bother you?” Anders asked. The soulmark was new, and Karl- well Karl wasn’t anything because this was a Circle, but chances were nothing would come of his new flashing light show except lectures from Gregoir, or a random death, and he didn’t want to scare off the only person who made the entire stupid tower bearable.

Karl pulled him into a deep kiss as an answer.

—

Unfortunately, the Templars found out, probably because it was right across his chest, and as it turned out they did watch the apprentices bathe. At the very least, watching his mark flicker about gave him something to do in solitary. Not that it had helped very much after the first month, but for that first one, it had given him a distraction, trying to guess what it was supposed to be resembling, trying to figure out if he could somehow get it to crackle more.

He liked to think of it as an interpretive outline of feathers, possibly by someone who had never actually seen feathers before and was attempting to draw some blindfolded, possibly while also drunk. Anders could very well be biased though since he liked feathers on his robes, and only part of that was because the Circle didn’t allow it.

But here he was now, stumbled ass-backwards into Wardenhood, and wouldn’t you know it, the Warden-Commander herself had a soulmark as well, discovered when they were all washing up in a river. She showed off her wrist quite happily, beautiful white and deep wine red splashes in the vague shape of a flower and twisted black briars like claw marks around it.

“See I got a classical flower,” Cousland said. “Mine doesn’t glow though.”

His mark pulsed at that. It had been weirdly more active ever since he had became a Warden.

“So was there a lot of swooning involved?” Anders asked cheerfully. “Or was it not exactly love at first sight?”

Cousland barked a laugh because she was that much of a Fereldan. “What, with an _Orleisan_? Oh Maker no. I hated her at first sight. Ugh.” Cousland shuddered and sighed dramatically. “But I can forgive her for her sins.”

Anders was fairly sure the Warden-Commander was joking. Fairly sure. She did loathe Orlesians, possibly more than anyone Anders had ever known, to a point bordering on complete irrationality.

“At least you should have a very easy time identifying yours at first sight. Just look for glowing blue lines, right?”

—

They were stuck in the Fade, horrifically stuck with possibly no way back to their world, trying to wander around the past version of the Blackmarsh, talking to the spirits of dead villagers or spirits posing as dead villagers. And there in the center of a mob, attempting to rouse them all against the one person who might be able to send them back, was some spirit in the most unimaginative suit of armor Anders had ever seen. There was nothing spectacular about him. It was just some plain-looking Justice spirit rallying the masses against the evil mage because of course.

The Justice spirit turned in his direction. He couldn’t see eyes under the helm, and Anders wouldn’t put it past the spirit to just have not conjured up eyes at all because it was that boring, but Anders got the distinct impression it was staring straight at him.

Anders fidgeted a bit and tugged at his fake sleeves, and the spirit returned its attention back to the Warden-Commander.

“I understand your predicament,” Cousland was saying. “And I really sympathize, but there’s a great evil happening in our world as well that would cause devastation to a lot more than a village. I really don’t mean to sound callous, and if I could help I would, but I am bound to my duty as a warden, and if she can send us back, then I need her help.”

And the spirit was still arguing.

“The injustice of your own situation underscores why these people must be avenged. These men and women are dead, yet their spirits remain trapped by the vanity of this sorceress. I do not know how to cross the Veil back into your world. Should you aid us now, however, I promise that I will help you search.”

Cousland raised an eyebrow. “If you don’t know how to send us back yourself, then I’m not sure where you would even start. No offense, I really would love to help, but again, bound by my duty. I’m fighting my own evil battles here.”

The Justice spirit paused for a moment. “Your kind crosses over the Veil all the time. To be honest, I cannot even imagine what power keeps you here. The darker spirits—those things you would call demons—they also seek to cross the Veil. Perhaps they will have answers for you. I will seek a demon to question, but only if you help me now. Justice must come first.”

Cousland stared at him for a moment. “Works for me,” she said and stuck her hand out. After a brief pause, Justice shook her hand, but for some reason Anders felt his skin crawl.

—

Justice and Aura had talked, briefly, with Justice promising to avenge Kristoff who had been married to Aura the old fashioned way, no soulmarks needed.

Justice had been almost morose lately, and Anders suspected it had to do with the conversation he had heard back in the keep. Justice, as it turned out, did too have desires, certain romantic desires that probably involved a lot of flowers and petals leading to a secluded moonlit alcove and then poetry. Apparently this, and not the nightmare fuel Children, was what scared him since Justice was the pinnacle of rationality.

Cousland was fond of giving them all little presents including a very fierce kitten who would definitely grow up to accomplish great and mighty deeds, but among Justice’s new books on poetry, there was one specifically focused on soulbonds. Anders didn’t want to even look inside because there was almost certainly a lot of tragic deaths of lovers and people only finding out once seeing the emblem of the sun caressing a butt cheek or the like. Personally, Anders liked some happiness in his trashy romance novels and also liked to ignore that randomly dropping dead any day wasn’t out of the picture for him.

Cousland, who was very open about everything, had even let Justice touch Cousland’s mark with his bony fingers.

Justice had asked him as well what his mark looked like, after Cousland, since Anders’ soulmark was rather common knowledge at this point, and Anders had laughed as he exited the room. Which was probably what he should have been doing right now in all honesty. But currently, Justice was sitting on one of the bunks, in the room Anders was in, saying nothing and probably pondering deep and poetic thoughts in that mind of his. He wasn’t reading the book currently, but his fingers kept tracing the spine of the book over and over while his gaze was distant.

Anders sighed and reflected on his absolutely generous nature here. “Do you still want to look?”

Justice’s gaze snapped to Anders’ face, dead eyes staring through his, and after a short moment in which Anders’ skin had started to crawl, he hesitantly nodded.

Anders shrugged out of his shirt while Justice approached, and he felt horribly exposed as Justice gently reached out and touched the edge of a line, feeling like hundreds of little bugs were running across his skin, but Justice didn’t mean any harm.

“These do not look like any I have seen in the Fade before,” Justice said softly. “Why do they glow?”

“Well it’s not like soulmarks are a high priority for education in the Circle,” Anders said sardonically. “So I don’t know.”

Justice withdrew his touch, leaving shivers in his wake.

—

It was to protect them both. Cousland, gone. Velanna, gone. Templar watching him at every step, purposefully waiting right outside his room, lurking right behind when he would go to such suspicious places like the cafeteria or the latrine. Those mages always getting up to their dark magics in the latrine.

He tried to keep his composure, shake in the safety of his room, curled up and fucking _thankful_ that they would most likely just kill him if they decided to drag him off again, not stick him back in solitary, not again.

Justice noticed. Justice also started following in just the right place to keep himself as a physical barrier between Anders and the Templar, and Anders could kiss those rotting lips he was so grateful.

But this couldn’t last. Templars never cared about the rules, and they always got away with breaking them. And honestly, Anders really was terrible at the whole ‘fugitive from justice’ thing, especially now with an actual Justice spirit lurking about who kept questioning Anders and forcing Anders to think about things.

“Do you honestly think any of this will work?” Anders asked, sitting cross-legged in a hidden clearing, nestled in a good deal of forestry as well as a good distance from the keep. “Go toe-to-toe with the entire world?”

Justice stared at him. “We can try. We have the ability, and it is my hope that together we can accomplish far more than we could do separate.” And not bringing up that shortly Justice wouldn’t be in much of a state to do anything at all. “Do the Wardens fight because they believe they can kill all the darkspawn? Do you heal thinking that no one will ever get injured again? No, because that is not why we do these things. There will always be problems that might never be solved, but we have the ability, so we must try.”

He grasped Anders’ hands in his own. “I promise you; should you grant me this immeasurable gift, I shall take on your cause as my own, and to the best of my ability, I shall make for you a world where mages walk freely.”

Jokes flitted through his head in hysteria. Marriage proposals, exactly the sort of thing a demon would promise, terrible, _terrible_ innuendo.

But honestly? Anders believed him, truly and utterly believed him, this stupid spirit who was exactly the one person who had ever made Anders feel safe, and that shook Anders the most. So he held his withered hands, reduced to sinew and bone, ignored the chunks of flesh lost in fights that had never recovered, the nights pouring over Mortalitasi tomes trying to figure out how they kept their corpses from decomposing.

Anders wanted to say something poetic and meaningful back, words that weren’t a joke and actually meant something.

“Yeah, okay,” he said instead because he was just the best poet of the Dragon Age.

 

And then-

And then Justice’s eyes glowed blue-

And then he was staring at the sky, right and wrong, unable to remember his name, unable to even just think without his brain twisting in two-

And then the Templars were there with proof enough of them to kill him, his spirit and his host and-

And he could feel himself bubbling underneath his skin, hissing and crackling, melting the armor off of these transgressors-

—

In the ruins of a clearing, blood up to his elbows, flakes of molten metal cooling on skin and with carnage without enough identifiable chunks to guess at actual bodies, he finally returned to a semblance of awareness.

He panicked because it had to have gone wrong, memory hazy at best, he had did it wrong, did it wrong, and it was all a mistake, anxiety crushing down upon him, both hims, fear spiraling into a maelstrom.

Except.

Except as he was hugging himself, while something akin to dark smoke emanated from his body, blue flickered in his vision. Shaking, he looked down at his hands, looked down at the familiar blue crackling over them, up his arms, down his leg, branching, twisting lines of light.

He held his breath, and other him held his breath, watching in wonder until it flickered out, leaving only the steady hum just over where the Templar had attempted to run them through.

Oh.


End file.
